


Recursion

by hollowforest



Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Eternal Return, F/M, I have no second installment and I must scream, Jenova as a character, LOVE that fate, M/M, Parallel Universes, Time Travel, gettin real existential up in here, remake gave me a lot of thoughts and feelings, weird philosophical musings I guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24300487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollowforest/pseuds/hollowforest
Summary: This isn't the first time Mother has done this, but the Planet remembers well.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Cloud Strife, Aerith Gainsborough/Sephiroth, Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Comments: 12
Kudos: 51





	1. Iteration 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sephiroth wakes in the Lifestream, and Jenova gives him a choice.

The first time he dies, he realizes he can’t.

Everything he thought he knew was wrong.

The Lifestream does not accept him. It does not welcome him. The further the mako sucks him down, forced by the powerful current in the Reactor, the more the Lifestream howls in pain.

WRONG, it screams, a thousand recursing voices crystallizing his cells. Freezing the abnormality in place.

A vision unravels in his mind, and he answers a knock on his door. Outside, cringing in the rain, is a woman with catlike eyes and silvery hair. She's beautiful, so incredibly beautiful that when she says _Help me_ , he does. Time unspools, traveling faster, forgotten days and weeks and months running on in an impossible, golden blur. _Love me_ , she begs, so he does. 

He does not realize his mistake until his firstborn child dies in his arms, and does not return to the Planet.

But by then, it’s too late.

WRONG, those Ancient voices shriek, because they remember their dead returning with those green, catlike eyes. CALAMITY, the Planet declares him, finally, finally showing him what he truly is. The Planet erodes him in a flood of memory, clawing and tearing until a quiet voice intervenes.

_Hush, now._

He recognizes that voice. That presence, soothing his pain, immersing him in a quiet void.

 _They do not understand_ , Mother tells him. She shows him things more glorious than he ever could have imagined. Stars, so many of them, a cauldron of light spilling across endless black. Worlds beyond worlds, vaster and more unknown than even Gaia’s most brilliant scientists could dream of. _We are made of greater things. We are gods, and time is nothing._

_Sleep._

The Lifestream traps him the only way it can, the same way it trapped the thing humans called Jenova two thousand years ago. Frozen in crystal, apparently sleeping, alive only in dreams.

Five years later, continents away, he wakes up. Summoned into being by little more than a concentrated cluster of immortal cells, he realizes he occupies a lesser being.

No--several lesser beings, scattered across the planet, but awakening here, now, because he is _close_.

 _Yes_ , Mother says. _Look_.

These hands are not the hands he had before. Weaker, stubbier, clutching a cumbersome sword he recognizes. A different conscious cowers beneath his own, damaged and trembling in the presence of a god.

 _Yes_ , Mother confirms. _Look_. She splays open the boy’s memories, and Sephiroth is stunned to see himself in them. To feel this body impaled on _his_ sword. Tears and rage and pain, so much pain, because he is alone.

It’s a sentiment Sephiroth can't quite separate himself from, because it drove him mad.

_You see? They need Us to guide them home. Let us help this one._

So they do. Out of a broken, crippled psyche, Sephiroth builds someone capable of finding him. Pushes and shapes and layers, until the memories coalesce, blurring together. With Mother’s guidance, he makes her cells flourish, strengthening a once-sickly body into one suited for hunting. For finding him.

 _For finding Us_ , Mother corrects. _He will be Our Weapon_. She shows him an array of impossible monsters, the Planet’s tools for suppressing threats. _We will guide him, and We will free Ourselves_.

This is not the first time Mother has done this. She shows him the edge of creation. She lets him remember the taste of worlds. Of stars. The deliciousness of time dissolving, falling apart like so much thread.

But it isn’t until Holy illuminates Mother’s face that he sees his own strings.

And it isn’t until they’re cut that he finally realizes what the Planet meant by _wrong_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just have a lot of feelings about everything Remake threw at us at the end. heckin' parallel universes and singularities and AAAAAAA THIS IS WHY AERITH'S DRESS AND BOOTS WERE WRONG. likely to be several more installments that are just fancy ways of screaming my theories into the night. planning to branch out from here with scenes that feature Actual Dialog and 2000% more characterization, I promise. got a theory? scream at me in the comments.
> 
> thanks for reading <3


	2. Iteration 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aerith wakes in the Lifestream, and the Planet gives her a choice.

The first time Aerith wakes up in the Lifestream, she is given a choice.

_Do you wish to go back?_

Separated from her body, still conscious, still _her_ , she doesn’t understand the question. The Planet is still in danger. Everyone she loves is still in danger. There is still so much to be done, so much to protect.

 _I don’t understand what you mean,_ she says. _Go back where? How?_

The Lifestream answers in images and impressions. Memories from her Cetran ancestors, dying by the hundreds in their fight to contain Jenova. Memories of those killed by Sephiroth’s fell hands. A feeling, a knowing that she cannot leave this fight to someone else.

But then the images change, and Aerith sees things that shouldn’t exist. Zack emerging from the battle that killed him--alive--with a younger Cloud slumped against his shoulder. Stunned, she watches them make their way through dusty flatlands back to Midgar. Sees a different version of herself, one dressed in white instead of pink. She turns in a patch of yellow flowers in her church, clasps her hands to her mouth.

“Zack…?”

There he is, impossibly whole, alive, still dressed as he was the last time she saw him, if seemingly worse for wear. With the Buster sword in one hand, and a slumped blond boy on his back, his normally happy features seem worn down. Tired.

“Heya,” Zack says, grinning. “Sorry I never called you back. Some, ah, some things happened.” His smile fades. “Some...bad things.” 

_Planet, what is this? What are you showing me?_

“I was so worried. You disappeared for four years, Zack.” The other Aerith hesitates, staring at the boy Zack carries on his back. “Who’s this?”

Gently, Zack sets his sword against the side of a pew, then crouches down. The boy on his back groans, mumbles nonsense. Zack slides him off his shoulder and carefully arranges him on the bench, like he would someone precious to him. The boy groans again, drunkenly swiping a hand. Zack catches it.

“It’s okay, Cloud,” he murmurs. “She's a friend. You’re safe.”

“What’s wrong with him?” the other Aerith says, finally approaching him. She’s seen people like this before. The cloaked man in Sector 5, moaning and stumbling like a ghost.

“Mako poisoning.” Zack turns, rises to his feet. “A lot of it. He needs help. And…” He scruffs the back of his head. “It’s a long story, but you’re the only one I trust right now.” Zack meets her eyes, the corner of his mouth jerking. “It’s so good to see you, Aerith.”

The other Aerith runs to him, then, clutches him tightly in her arms.

But the Aerith who is already dead, the Aerith who can only watch doesn’t understand. Why is the Planet showing her this? What is it trying to tell her? Why show her how it could have gone differently?

 _Watch_ , the voices command.

The Planet shows her where this other Aerith goes. One where Zack found AVALANCHE and led the assault on Shinra. Not for her, but for Cloud. A different Cloud, who truly became Sephiroth’s puppet, both friend and enemy at once. In this timeline, it is Cloud who strikes her down. When the other Aerith collapses in her white dress and Holy falls into the water, the orb goes dark.

_Do you wish to go back?_

Aerith turns, prickling at that voice. The other Aerith smiles at her, ruefully, like she understands how impossible the choice is, now. How heavy and difficult it’s become.

_If I go back, will I lose myself?_

The other Aerith shakes her head. Her white dress, so strange in this place, is unstained and pristine. She knots her hands behind her back, and the bangles at her wrists tinkle quietly, their music an eerie chime.

 _You can’t_ , she says. _The Whispers will try, but we’ll help you remember. This is bigger than just a threat to the Planet._ Her voice trembles, weak and sad. _We didn’t know what we were really dealing with. But you were one of the only ones who got it right._

_What only ones? What are you talking about?_

_I’ll show you_ , the other Aerith says, and two more Aeriths step into the circle, each slightly different, each so terribly sad.

 _We summoned Holy_ , they say. _We stopped Meteor. We thought it was over. But it wasn’t._

And then a look of terror mars their faces.

 _He's coming_ , they say in unison. 

Even dead, she knows what fear is. The Lifestream cries out in pain, rejecting the wrongness. Pleading for help. The other Aeriths feel it too, both retreating except for the one in the white dress. Her jaw sets, as though determined, and she clasps Aerith’s hands.

 _You have to decide now_ , the other Aerith says. Her eyes are wide, so wide. _You can’t go back to your time. The Whispers won’t allow it. He isn’t a threat to them yet, but he will be. And the next one needs your guidance._ She squeezes her hands. _Please. We have to stop him_.

Aerith can feel him, now, descending like night. 

_What happens to you if I go back now?_

The other Aerith smiles sadly. _You already know_. _I failed. You didn't._ A staff of light appears in her hands. _So. Will you go?_

 _Yes_ , Aerith says, to herself, to her selves, to the Planet, to Fate. _I wish to go back._

So she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoo, this was probably hell to read and super murky, so here are some notes for clarification.
> 
> The Aerith we follow in this chapter is the Aerith from the original game. I ADORE the idea that Remake Aerith is either a time traveler or has learned **somehow** what happened in the original game, and that it can't go down that way again. Why? Who knows. Maybe we'll find out in the next installment. Till then, I write. 
> 
> These two opening chapters were mostly to lay a foundation. Hopefully it'll be a little less murky from here.
> 
> Thank you for reading <3


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